A Well Regulated Militia . . .

The GTA games have never been about cutting edge visuals and maximising the potential of the hardware, but they've done a fantastic job here: the game world looks absolutely stunning. They've learnt a lot of lessons on creating huge vistas from Red Dead Redemption and the weather and night/day transitions are sumptuous.

The sheer diversity of the world now is incredible but all of these fantastic buildings and installations sort of encourage you to want to explore them. So far at least though there doesn't seem to be much reward in terms of locations with interiors or pick-ups to be found.

I think the ability to switch between the stories and missions of the different protagonists is very well done but it doesn't take you long to realise that at its heart there's not a huge amount that advances the series. It's all polish and tightening and making the thing much more cinematic.

As an aside I find the wanted level and police pursuit quite harsh. I punched a character and that was enough to get me a police star even though there were none in site. Just trying to evade them raised my wanted level to 2 stars and police cars were smashing into me at speed like maniacs.

There's a lot of bare breasts in the game for the first time which I'm mentioning because of a tweet I saw last night: 'OMG, GTAV has REAL tits!!!'

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

They've learnt a lot of lessons on creating huge vistas from Red Dead Redemption and the weather and night/day transitions are sumptuous

Yeah, I didn't mention it in my post but they've clearly upgraded the lighting substantially. Sunsets and dawns look spectacular and the city takes on a whole different feel at different times of day.

As Dalliance says, though, it's still very much a GTA game. They're not turning the series into Skyrim or anything like that. Buildings are decoration for the most part and your interactions with the world are strictly regimented (in the context of an open world of course).

As an aside I find the wanted level and police pursuit quite harsh. I punched a character and that was enough to get me a police star even though there were none in site. Just trying to evade them raised my wanted level to 2 stars and police cars were smashing into me at speed like maniacs.

I didn't find it any more harsh than the previous games. In fact, now that the cop cars have vision cones, it's easier to escape by hiding in an alley.

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

There are in-mission checkpoints, but I'm not sure how good they are yet - in GTA IV they were hit and miss, though on a second attempt you could jump to the start of the mission proper rather than driving even if you hadn't hit a checkpoint. I've only failed one mission so far (semi-deliberately to hear some ambient dialogue). The checkpoint for that one was just where you'd want it to be.

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

A curious headline in The Scotsman today:

'Grand Theft Auto V: Hawick fury at game inclusion'

Rockstar have named one of the druggy districts of Los Santos after the small Borders town. Predictably councillors are ''shocked and outraged.' Everyone is shocked and outraged by everything these days.

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

Cases like these are among the most gut-wrenching of gun deaths. Children shot accidentally — usually by other children — are collateral casualties of the accessibility of guns in America, their deaths all the more devastating for being eminently preventable.

They die in the households of police officers and drug dealers, in broken homes and close-knit families, on rural farms and in city apartments. Some adults whose guns were used had tried to store them safely; others were grossly negligent. Still others pulled the trigger themselves, accidentally fracturing their own families while cleaning a pistol or hunting.

And there are far more of these innocent victims than official records show.

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

In Bexar County, Tex., for example, the medical examiner’s office issued a finding of homicide in the death of William Reddick, a 9-month-old who was accidentally killed on May 17, 1999, when his 2-year-old brother opened a dresser drawer while in the crib with him, grabbed a pistol and pulled the trigger.

What kind of moron keeps a loaded gun in a dresser next to a baby's crib without at least having a trigger lock on it?

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

According to her website, U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers "believes that gun owners must be responsible for the use and care of their guns." Maybe she should listen to her own advice.

An AR-15 rifle was reportedly stolen from her home last week after the family returned from a target-shooting excursion. According to the New Observer, the gun had been left next to a gun locker in the family's unlocked garage. Said Police Chief J.D. Pope, "They had been out target shooting and brought the gun back and leaned it against the gun safe… The garage door was left unsecured, according to the report.”

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

A Well Regulated Militia . . .

Lots of conflicting reports at the moment. A number of headlines that the report has been "confirmed", and yet the police just said that they have yet to see anyone with a gun (though they have arrested someone without one).